IBM zBladeSizer and IBM zBladeEXTRzBX Capacity Planning Tool and

Extractor

Chuck HackettIBM Corporation

February 7, 2013Session 13091

2

TrademarksThe following are trademarks of the International Business Machines Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

AlphaBlox*APPN*CICS*CICS/VSE*Cool BlueDB2*DFSMSDFSMShsmDFSMSrmmDirMaintDRDA*DS6000DS8000ECKDESCON*FICON*FlashCopy*

GDPS*HiperSocketsHyperSwapIBM*IBM eServerIBM logo*IMSLanguage Environment*Lotus*Large System Performance Reference™ (LSPR™)Multiprise*MVSOMEGAMON*Parallel Sysplex*Performance Toolkit for VMPowerPC*PR/SMProcessor Resource/Systems Manager

RACF*Redbooks*Resource LinkRETAIN*REXXRMFS/390*Scalable Architecture for Financial ReportingSysplex Timer*Systems Director Active Energy ManagerSystem/370System p*System StorageSystem x*System zSystem z9*System z10

Tivoli*Tivoli Storage ManagerTotalStorage*VSE/ESAVTAM*WebSphere*xSeries*z9*z10z10 BCz10 ECz/Architecture*Zenterprise 196*z/OS*z/VM*z/VSEzSeries*

The following are trademarks or registered trademarks of other companies.Adobe, the Adobe logo, PostScript, and the PostScript logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States, and/or other countries.Cell Broadband Engine is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both and is used under license therefrom. Java and all Java-based trademarks are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both. Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, and the Windows logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.Intel, Intel logo, Intel Inside, Intel Inside logo, Intel Centrino, Intel Centrino logo, Celeron, Intel Xeon, Intel SpeedStep, Itanium, and Pentium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other countries, or both. ITIL is a registered trademark, and a registered community trademark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.IT Infrastructure Library is a registered trademark of the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency, which is now part of the Office of Government Commerce.

* All other products may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Notes: Performance is in Internal Throughput Rate (ITR) ratio based on measurements and projections using standard IBM benchmarks in a controlled environment. The actual throughput that any user will experience will vary depending upon considerations such as the amount of multiprogramming in the user's job stream, the I/O configuration, the storage configuration, and the workload processed. Therefore, no assurance can be given that an individual user will achieve throughput improvements equivalent to the performance ratios stated here. IBM hardware products are manufactured from new parts, or new and serviceable used parts. Regardless, our warranty terms apply.All customer examples cited or described in this presentation are presented as illustrations of the manner in which some customers have used IBM products and the results they may have achieved. Actual environmental costs and performance characteristics will vary depending on individual customer configurations and conditions.This publication was produced in the United States. IBM may not offer the products, services or features discussed in this document in other countries, and the information may be subject to change without notice. Consult your local IBM business contact for information on the product or services available in your area.All statements regarding IBM's future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.Information about non-IBM products is obtained from the manufacturers of those products or their published announcements. IBM has not tested those products and cannot confirm the performance, compatibility, or any other claims related to non-IBM products. Questions on the capabilities of non-IBM products should be addressed to the suppliers of those products.Prices subject to change without notice. Contact your IBM representative or Business Partner for the most current pricing in your geography.

3

Agenda■ Intro■ IBM zBladeSizer and IBM zBladeEXTR■ What problem is being solved

–How are we solving it–Input data and customer controls–Optimization

■ Documented results■ Demo

■ Q+A

4

The Problem: Server Migration to the zBX

■ Find an optimum solution to a zBX server migration scenario

■ Document the solution with a comprehensive set of reports and graphs

■ Rapidly investigate alternative scenarios

5

zBX Hardware Overview

6

Systems configuration and performance data collected by zBladeEXTR (Power or x86)

Techline receives data and uses zBladeSizer to build a right-sizedzBX configuration.

Benefits:• Rapidly generated solution• Easy generation of a solution report• Interactive and easy to use• Tailorable solution parameters:

• zBX hardware parameters• Segregation of groups of

servers by application• Isolation of specific servers from others

• Resource demands mapped to a 24 hour profile configure an optimum zBX solution, not just peak hour.

• A solution based on actual performance data including CPU, network and disk I/O, and memory

7

IBM zBladeEXTR

■ Extract intervals from collected performance data–Customer can run zBladeEXTR and send file to IBM - OR -–Zip and ship data * to IBM to run

■ Validity checking■ Output a CSV and error/summary reports■ Prompted to fill out a questionnaire of customer business controls■ Help for data collection:

–data collection guide–zBladeEXTR process wizard–Support from the IBM ATS organization

* Performance Data Source:– NMON data for System P– SAR for System X server LINUX systems

8

zBladeEXTR Data Gap Analysis■ Navigation■ Current status■ Step Detail

Is this the right set of data for analysis?

9

zBladeEXTR Questionnaire Application Server Groups

Servers are assigned to a group, and each group of servers can:

■ Share blades■ Have different peak hours (or

default)■ Have different CPU and

memory usage constraint values (for warn and limit).

■ Have different growth rates■ Order their placement on zBX

blades.

Groups are used to demark business functions and priorities

10

zBladeEXTR Questionnaire Isolation Subgroups

■ Define isolation subgroups within a group

■ Servers in an isolation subgroup will NOT share a blade

Isolation subgroups separate servers

11

zBladeEXTR Questionnaire Hardware

■ Blade selection–PS701 32,64,128GB–E7-2830

64,128,192,256GB■ Number of reserved blades

per chassis■ I/O paths (number of links and

link speeds)■ I/O path usage constraints for

each of the 5x2 connections (10 total because the links are full duplex)

12

zBladeEXTR QuestionnaireCapacity Planning Considerations

■ Growth Rate

■ Peak Hour Selection

■ Solution Constraints

Customize It

By Group or Server

Selected or Calculated

Maximum allowable CPU and Memory % by group, and disk and network IO bandwidth % by configuration

Specification

13

zBladeSizer: How it Solves the Server Migration Problem

■ Data from server collection agents■ 24 hour statistical profiles each server, each resource■ Customer business controls■ Search for optimum solution ■ Output best configuration

– graphs and analysis– deliver report to customer

14

Optimization in zBladeSizer■ Resource supplies from hardware definitions and usage constraints

■ Resource demands from server usage data (and growth rates)■ Supply and demand are matched to find the configuration with the least number of

blades■ The hybrid algorithm runs in parallel by solving each application server group

independently, then combines the group results into a final configuration– For small sized groups, uses an exhaustive search– For larger groups, uses a genetic algorithm – Heuristics employed to reduce turnaround time

15

Outputs from zBladeSizer

■ Graphs and reports showing usage for 6 resources: – CPU– Memory– disk read and write IO– network read and write IO

■ Shown by relevant hardware component, – Blade, chassis (blade center), frame, node

■ Shown by group and server

■ Reports show the layout of the zBX with server to blade assignments

■ Reports can be saved to disk as HTML for import into a word processor

16

Server to Blade Assignments■ Sample main view of the application showing server to

group assignments and blade assignments

17

Servers on Blades■ Sample report output showing server assignment to blades, by blade.

Also has isolation subgroup “hot backup”

18

2 Sample Charts Following

■ CPU Usage by blade–The highest average CPU usage is at 35%–the CPU is relatively lightly used and does not stress the capacity of the

PS701–one blade is very low usage, and that was because of the way the

groups were setup

■ Memory usage by blade–Can see how the memory has significant resource demands and

contributes to the sizing of the zBX–All blades are sized identically

19

Example: CPU Each Blade

Blade CPU Percent Usage

Sizing Group Peak Hour Was peak selected or calculated?

Node1.B.1.04 34.09% DATABASE 1 Calculated

Node1.B.1.03 29.90% DEFAULT 1 Calculated

Node1.B.1.02 29.85% DEFAULT 16 Calculated

Node1.B.1.05 28.77% DATABASE 1 Calculated

Node1.B.1.01 11.74% WAS 22 Calculated

20

Example: Memory Each Blade

21

X86 Server Platform Identification● SAR data isn't as comprehensive as NMON, so we need to

identify the source server platform● Using vendor data which may change to a different vendor● Previous decisions are retained for a rapid restart● Filtering dialog to provide assist

22

Selecting the X86 platform

● Display gathered info● Each column has an automatic filter

23

Column filter, example using Processor

● Cascading menu for choosing from a big collection

24

Plans for CY2013

■ Data Preview (example next slide), with interactive excludes■ Change P servers to use percent of blade (zBPCI) like X servers■ Combine P and X servers in the same study■ Secondary studies after a zBX already installed

– Phase 1: hardened, start counting beyond– Phase 2: zManager for CPU, I/O

■ Summary by day

25

Preview Data (v1.5 under development)

26

How to get started

EMAILzbladesz@us.ibm.com

inside IBM URLs

CPSTools : http://w3.ibm.com/support/americas/wsc/cpsproducts.html

zBladeSizer : http://w3.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/PRS4966

Techline Request Generator:http://w3-03.ibm.com/support/techline/na/trg/form.html

Design Assessment (*not* System Design and Configuration) System z capacity (*not* HW: System z) Solution area is n/a

27

zBladeSizer Addendum on Hybrid Optimization Algorithm

■ Constrained optimization problem, a search through solution space

■ Possible solution set and feasible solution set, unconstrained search■ Group segregation to make parallel■ Group solution is a server to blade assignment■ Fitness score is the number of blades for a group, tie breaker std dev of CPU■ Genetic algorithm (GA) vs. exhaustive search for small groups■ The GA population as a parallel solver

– Ranking by fitness, cull by score– Breeding and selection, cross over, mutation

■ 24 hour profile and the six resources, supply [* constraints] and demand [* growth rates]

■ Configuration build is a combination of groups and the application of additional constraints■ Multiple independent runs to improve solution space coverage